It is generally known that when a living body including human patient receives invasive stress caused by, for example, anesthesia, surgery, or the like which is a factor affecting homeostasis in vivo, the living body leads to secrete various insulin's antagonistic hormones (catecholamine, glucagon, corticoid, etc.), promotes gluconeogenesis and glycogenolysis in the liver, and elevates the blood glucose (hereinafter, also referred to as blood sugar) level through autonomic nervous system/endocrine system in order to maintain the function of living cells (for example, see MAYUMI et al., “IGAKU NO AYUMI”, Vol. 168, pages 418-423, 1994).
In particular, dehydration may be occurred due to significant hyperglycemia or osmotic diuresis in patients with sugar metabolism disorders such as diabetes mellitus in the perioperative period, because of insufficient insulin action resulting from nearly fasting conditions or invasive stress, etc. caused by anesthesia or surgery, etc. If these conditions will continue, severe complications such as abnormal metabolism, coma, and multiple organ failure may sometimes occur in the patients because of severe insufficiency in sugar utilization. In the case of these patients, when the patients in the perioperative period are given no sugar, body proteolysis and lipolysis occur, free fatty acids and ketone bodies are increased in the blood, resulting in ketoacidosis. This can occur not only in the patients with sugar metabolism disorder, but also similarly in the patients who undergo highly invasive surgery required for a long operation time or in the patients with severe diseases which are treated intensively at ICU, etc.
Accordingly, control of blood sugar level in the perioperative period is an important issue under the management of general anesthesia. It is known that the management of blood sugar level in the perioperative period within the appropriate range leads not only to shorten the period required for curing after surgery but also to increase the probability of survival for patients after surgery.
Presently, control of blood sugar level in the perioperative period is performed by supplementation of saccharides, usually glucose, and by insulin administration method in the case of hyperglycemia. The insulin administration method is a method of continuous intravenous administration of insulin by using an infusion pump while monitoring the patient's blood sugar level and serum insulin concentration of patients, if required, after the surgery, in order to keep the level within an appropriate range during the surgery.
However, continuous control of correct insulin dosage for patients requires advanced technique. When insulin is excessively administered by mistake, the patient becomes hypoglycemia and has a risk of causing coma or severe damage in central nervous system. In normal surgery, in order to maintain body's protein and fat and to prevent ketoacidosis, infusion such as saccharides is supplied to the patient, and the insulin dosage depends on these supplied saccharides, and thus more advanced control thereof is required. In addition, with respect to the patient whose insulin sensitivity is decreased, such as insulin-independent diabetes mellitus observed frequently in elderly people or overweight people, the effect on blood sugar level reduction by the above-mentioned insulin administration is not sometimes expected enough.
Hence, the control technique of blood sugar level by insulin administration is not necessarily a safe method for patients, and the control/management is difficult.
Therefore, like an inhibitor for blood sugar elevation of the present invention, the inhibitor for blood sugar elevation which is safe for patients has never been known yet at the point that the constituent components contains branched amino acids. In addition, it can be said that the present invention is an excellent invention, because strict control of the insulin dosage is not necessarily needed unlike the insulin administration method, and the supplementation of saccharides can be easily performed in the perioperative period.